


After Gravity Falls

by two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks (mentioned), Bill fucked things up real bad, College, Depression, Dipper and Mabel are best friends, Dipper and Mabel dealing with their PTSD after Gravity Falls, Dipper and Mabel growing up, Gen, Going to college, Growing Up, Mental Health Issues, Night Terrors, Nightmares, OCD, PTSD, Panic Attacks (mentioned), Post-Weirdmageddon, Selective Mute Mabel, Sibling Bonding, The Mystery Twins are dealing with all of the shit still on their minds after Gravity Falls, They're never going to be the same, Trust Issues, these poor kids, they're just kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 21:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat/pseuds/two_drama_nerds_in_a_boat
Summary: They weren’t the same, of course, but how could they be?You could ask anyone and you’d get the same response. The Pines twins were… different. They were changed, after Gravity Falls.-Rated Teen for mentions of mental health disorders and they also say 'fuck' a few times.I did not edit this.





	After Gravity Falls

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone, so I'm back at it with slightly sad gravity falls fics. 
> 
> Sorry. 
> 
> (This is slightly based off of this piece of artwork by sailorleo on tumblr- link is http://sailorleo.tumblr.com/post/141080611780/kids-dealing-with-shit)

At first, it was fine. Because, arguably, they were both still in shock, and their birthday party/going away party absorbed their thoughts for the day after Weirdmaggedon. And even after their long bus ride, when they finally made it to California, they were okay. 

Well, okay enough. 

They weren’t the same, of course, but how could they be?

 

You could ask anyone and you’d get the same response. The Pines twins were… different. They were changed, after Gravity Falls. 

Dipper was the one with the nightmares. He got them each night, every night, and each night the dreams were the same. All the worst parts of the Weirdmaggedon flashing before his eyes. Bill on that sickening throne. His entire family - Mabel, his parents, Grunkle Ford, Grunkle Stan - all of them dead or turned to gold. It varied nightly. Dipper still remembered how it had felt to be in that belltower as he watched Ford get turned into a statue. As he watched Ford’s life drain from his eyes. As he watched Ford turn into Bill’s human-shaped back scratcher. Dipper would never forget it. He’d never forget Ford turned to solid gold, or Bill’s twisted laughter. He wanted so desperately to forget it. 

Oh, why had he let Mabel stomp on that amnesia ray?

Mabel… oh, she had the worst of it all. At least Dipper could still (sort of) function in society. Because even though Dipper might’ve only been getting two to three hours of sleep each night, he could fake a smile. He could down three cups of coffee every morning and still participate in school. He could pretend to trust people, even if his mind still screamed TRUST NO ONE, even if he knew that Bill could possess anyone at any moment. Because Dipper knew how to pretend his way into a lie of perfect health. Dipper didn’t have crippling anxiety attacks. 

Mabel… Mabel was… she was a different story.

The doctors said she suffered from severe anxiety, depression, trust issues, and showed multiple symptoms of PTSD… which was putting it nicely. After the twins arrived back in California, Mabel became selectively mute. Anxious. Out of touch with the world and people around her. On the rare occasion that she would talk, Mabel only spoke to Dipper. 

It would be in the morning, after one of Dipper’s nightmares. Neither of them could ever get any sleep anymore. 

“We’re kids,” Mabel would say. “We’re just kids. Do you know how fucked up that was? I was trapped in a prison bubble. I could have stayed there for eternity, in a rainbow-colored world built from lies and dark magic… dark magic isn’t even supposed to exist, Dipper. And at least I got the neon-pink version of it… Grunkle Ford was turned to solid gold. Candy… Grenda… they were stone statues… I’m complaining about being trapped in a dream bubble, my fucking god…"

“I know,” Dipper would mutter. “We were twelve. It was fucked up.”

They couldn’t talk to anyone about it. That was the worst part. When Dipper started having horrible those nightmares every evening, waking up screaming about someone named Bill… he couldn’t tell his parents why. When Mabel was diagnosed with severe anxiety and OCD and depression, no one could find the cause. When both children started showing symptoms of PTSD, no one knew why. 

“We can’t tell them why,” Dipper told Mabel, when they first discussed the matter. “Any therapist will think we’re crazy.”

And Mabel had responded with a single nod. 

She didn’t talk as much as she used to. 

Their parents sent them to therapy, anyway. But it didn’t help. The therapist got nothing but bullshit lies from Dipper, and only long, awkward silences from Mabel. 

“Did your uncle abuse you? Did anyone touch you inappropriately? Were the citizens of the town threatening?”

These questions were some of the most common. But above all, the only question people wanted the answer to was:

“What happened in Gravity Falls?”

Not that Dipper or Mabel could answer. Not truthfully. 

No one ever asked, “Hey, did an evil one-eyed demon terrorize you and your friends?”

No one asked the question because it was ridiculous. 

It was impossible. 

No one would have believed Dipper and Mabel if they told the truth about Gravity Falls. 

Dipper and Mabel were still in contact with some of their Gravity Falls friends, which could have been nice if they needed to talk about their lives post-Weirdmaggedon. Sometimes Dipper would call Wendy. Mabel wrote emails to Grenda and Candy. The twins made sure to send Soos cards every holiday, and sometimes in-between holidays, too. But every conversation, every letter, every text message felt weird. Awkward. Sometimes even forced. When Wendy asked Dipper how he was doing, he’d fake an upbeat disposition. Mabel and Candy and Grenda were growing apart. And with her depression, Mabel lost motivation to keep up her emails. Every card to Soos was a lie - We’re doing fine. We’re happy in Cali. We can’t wait to come back to Gravity Falls. 

They weren’t doing fine ; they were falling apart.

They weren’t happy ; they were miserable. 

And why would the every want to go back to Gravity Falls?

Dipper already revisited it every evening in his nightmares. If those were just the stress dreams, what would happen if the twins went back to see the real thing?

There were so, so, so many times Mabel or Dipper wanted to call Ford and Stan. But both Grunkles were busy. Turns out brotherly sea-fairing adventures are incredibly time-consuming, and neither Ford nor Stan owned a mobile phone. Mabel and Dipper couldn’t even write letters. How would they address them?

Stanford and Stanley Pines  
The Boat in the Middle of the Arctic Ocean  
(no zip code available)

Stanley wasn’t even supposed to be alive, for fuck’s sake. He’d faked his death years ago to assumed his brother’s identity in the sleepy little town of Gravity Falls. Mabel and Dipper’s didn’t even know that he was alive, or that Stanford was trapped in another dimension for nearly thirty years. Their poor parents knew nothing. 

Then again, the Pines twins had nothing to tell. 

They couldn’t trust anyone, anymore. Not after Gravity Falls. 

After a year of the nightmares and the anxiety and the post traumatic stress, the twins fell into a ritual. 

Dipper woke up from his night terrors at about one every morning. When Dipper woke up, Mabel woke up. And then they would sit together in the darkness of their room, sharing a sobering silence. On the rare occasion that Mabel felt up to it, or when Dipper’s dreams really, really got to him, they would speak. 

“Bill is dead,” Dipper would say. 

Mabel would nod along, holding his hand. “He’s dead.”

 

“I killed him.”

“We killed him.”

People always thought the Pines twins would grow apart as they got older. It’s what siblings often did. Because Dipper was a boy and Mabel was a girl, and because their personalities were so different, people expected them to go separate ways. But that never happened to them. 

They turned fourteen, and they grew closer. 

They turned fifteen, and they grew closer. 

At sixteen, it was like no one else in the world really existed to them, because no one else in the world understood the trauma they suffered from the events at Gravity Falls. 

Mabel and Dipper never went back to Gravity Falls. 

They never wanted to. 

They never saw Soos or Wendy or Candy or Grenda again - despite all their promises. It was just that going to Gravity Falls again tortured the twins in ways they couldn’t bear to explain. And no one from Gravity Falls ever went to the trouble of catching a bus to California. 

The twins did see Stanley and Stanford again, if briefly. It was when Mabel and Dipper were seventeen. Their Grunkles showed up at their house one day, and told their stories from times spent on the open sea. The Grunkles stayed for a few months, but they had to leave again soon after. 

The twins missed them, but Dipper made sure to give Ford a mobile phone this time. 

“How does it work?” Ford asked, as Dipper showed him how to make a FaceTime call. “Does it need a floppy disk?”

“No, Grunkle Ford,” Dipper said. 

Mabel laughed. 

It was the first time she’d laughed in four years. 

Now that they had modern technology on their side, the twins could call Stan and Ford whenever they needed someone to talk to. Now, their Grunkles weren’t exactly therapists, but it gave Mabel and Dipper someone to talk to. Finally, there were people who understood the horrors of Gravity Falls, people who were only a short phone call away. 

Mabel and Dipper turned eighteen. They took a gap year before college, and when they started their search for higher education, they were finally ready to be apart again. 

“Will this be the end of the Mystery Twins?” Mabel asked, when she was accepted to California College of the Arts on a full scholarship, and Dipper was going off to Oxford. 

“I don’t think there’ll ever be an end to the Mystery Twins,” Dipper said. “But maybe it’s time we learned how to go it on our own?”

They hugged each other then, but it wasn’t just another awkward sibling hug. This was genuine. 

Mabel went to CCA, and Dipper went to Oxford. 

Life after Gravity Falls was normal. 

They needed it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I tried to give it a happy ending but idk if that really worked or not???? Anyway this was just me thinking about what would probably happen after Gravity Falls and how the kids would be affected and that sort of thing.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!!!


End file.
